“Yes, you can,” Animus said, and suddenly a powerful tailwind urged her forward.
When Kuzo realized that he was not going to get away, he turned to face them, releasing a torrent of fire. Chantra redirected it into the waves of the rising tide, and the air around them was filled with the hiss of steam. Tabitha was coming in too fast for Kuzo to dodge, and she hit him in the center of his chest. Pivoting downward sharply, she drove him into the sea. Cold water swallowed them and she felt Kuzo panic. Water and cold are not the friends of a dragon. Even now, Tabitha could feel the burning core of her body begin to cool. Kuzo beat her off and struggled into the air, releasing a mad burst of flames that sizzled across the water. But then the flames were gone, and the air was gone, and Kuzo fell, flapping futilely, back into the sea.
From above, they heard Animus say, “Fire and wings both require the wind to work, my friend. And I will not allow you to find them tonight. The time has come for you to calm down.”
Kuzo bellowed and slapped the water with his tail. He opened his mouth to breathe fire again, but the light in his throat was gone. Still, he refused to give up. He lashed out with his tail and caught Tabitha by surprise. She flung Chantra into the air with a flick of her foreleg just before she was pulled beneath the surface, unwilling to drag her into an underwater wrestling match. With any luck, Animus would catch her in the air.
She grappled with Kuzo, but he forced her deeper. Too late, she realized that he was bigger than she was, and much stronger. It hadn’t mattered so much in the sky. There she was lighter and faster. Here he was heavier, broader, and she couldn’t get away. He might have drowned her then, had it not been for Fitz.
The prince of the nymph kingdom leapt out of the sea and landed on the red dragon’s belly with a sword of polished bone and a rope that looked as if it had been woven from the tide. He pried one of Kuzo’s scales up with the tip of his sword and the dragon twisted defensively, releasing Tabitha and turning his underbelly into the cold water.
Tabitha became a seal, determined to put some distance between herself and Kuzo. When she was safely away, she turned back to see if Fitz needed help. Fitz was on the dragon’s back now, and Kuzo turned over, snapping at him. But Fitz was too fast. He dove out of the way, then reemerged on Kuzo’s other side and climbed back onto the dragon’s belly.
Tabitha and Kuzo realized what Fitz was doing at the same moment. There was far less rope in Fitz’s hands now than when he had started, and it was coiled three or four times around Kuzo’s middle. Kuzo roared with fury and Fitz dove back into the sea. The dragon beat his wings again, but the rope drew taut across his chest and he began to sink into the water. The more he struggled, the deeper he sank. Finally, when his head was the only thing above the surface, he stopped thrashing. He was beaten, and he knew it. He opened his mouth to breathe fire, but once again nothing came out. He wailed in protest. Then, with nothing left to do, chained to the sea with the warmth seeping out of him, Kuzo surrendered.
Fitz’s grinning face bobbed out of the water next to Tabitha, and he grinned. “I was watching you.”
Tabitha changed back into her own form and he held out an arm for her to hold on to. His skin was warmer than she expected.
They approached the dragon slowly, listening to his heavy breathing and watching for signs of further struggle, but he did not lash out again.
“What did you tie him to?” Tabitha asked in wonder. “Some sort of sea creature?”
Fitz nodded.
“But what could be big enough to hold a dragon?” She stuck her head under the water before she realized what she was doing, and came out sputtering.
Fitz grinned. “Come to the sea sometime, and I’ll show you.”
Tabitha blushed, and then turned into a dragon again. Almost by accident, she caught him with her tail and pushed him back into the water. When he came back out and climbed onto her back, she pretended not to notice. But she did notice. She saw the look of longing in his eyes—a desire for new things, new people—and she recognized it as the same longing that had filled her life and driven her to know every animal and learn the names of all the birds. She and Fitz were connected in a way she could not explain, yet so much separated them. Even now a thin line of water ran down his foot and trailed into the sea, anchoring him to the place that he refused to leave. It was not unlike the rope that bound Kuzo, and it was the reason she knew they would never be more than friends.
Kuzo gave a final roar. It was full of sorrow this time instead of anger, and the sound tugged at Tabitha’s heart. Finally, he rolled onto his back and drifted with the tide. Tabitha did the same, pulling up alongside him, and Animus slipped out of the air to land on her belly beside Chantra.
The Mage of Fire wrung her hair out as she gazed at Kuzo. When she was finished, she slipped into the water and climbed up onto him. She sat down cross-legged in the center of his belly as she had done on Tabitha, and then put out her hands, palms down, as if warming them over a fire. A second later, a small fire erupted beneath them, dancing over his shining scales like sunlight in a jewel.
Kuzo lifted his head out of the water to stare at it, then at her.
“You,” he said.
“Me,” she agreed. “You might have noticed me earlier, if you hadn’t been in such a foul mood.”
The dragon growled, but said nothing.
“It has been a long time,” she prompted.
“Not so long,” he said. “They came looking for you. You got out of your stone, I see. You have grown.”
“You have not,” Chantra said without looking at him. “The same anger still consumes you. The same lust for revenge. You found your fire, but you are not using it how I hoped you would.”
Kuzo lowered his head back to rest on the water. “Can I not have my revenge?”
“Is that what you really want?” Chantra asked. “Will killing Gadjihalt make you happy? Or Shael? Or his armies? Will the burning of the whole Ire solve your problem?”
Kuzo was silent.
“What, then?”
A small breeze buffeted Chantra’s fire and Animus was beside her. He sat down cross-legged and spread his own hands over the heat.
Tabitha changed back into herself then, climbed up after them, and sat beside Chantra.
“Well, Kuzo?” Tabitha asked. “What do you want?”
He raised his head out of the water again and craned his neck around to stare at the three of them. “I believe,” he said slowly, “that I wish to die.”
They stared at him for a moment in silence, and then Animus nodded. “You want to go home,” he corrected gently. “It is not the same thing.”
“It is for me!” Kuzo snarled. “What home do I have left here? My family is gone. Who will want to share their land with a dragon? In what corner of this world will I be welcome? Tell me that! No. There is no place left for me in this world. I am ready to die, but there is no death for a dragon except in battle. And you will not give me even that.”
Tabitha suddenly felt ashamed. She hadn’t thought about how lonely it must be to be the last dragon in the world. And she hadn’t thought at all about where Kuzo might live when she set him free. She could remember what it was like to have no place in the world. But she had found one. First at the Magisterium and then with Brinley. Where would Kuzo find such a place? Who would want him, or even care?
An idea struck her then. “Kuzo,” she said. “What if there was a place?”
He let his head float on the surface of the water beside them still, but he opened one eye. “What’s this?” he said.
“What if we had a place for you to go? A place where you could roam freely and eat whatever you wanted. I mean, you would have the place mostly to yourself. We don’t go there much, but when we do, we would all be happy to see you.”
Animus cleared his throat, but Tabitha ignored him.
Kuzo raised his head again and swung it around to glare at her. “There is no such place.”
“There is,” T
abitha said, nodding excitedly and rushing ahead. “There’s our home. The home of the Magemother and the mages. There is Calypsis! You can stay with us, and you can build your own sand cave if you want, or even have a room in the palace, and Belsie and I can bring you heartbeasts and deer to eat.”
Kuzo snarled. “I will not be kept like some pet and fed with a spoon!”
Tabitha nodded several times. “Of course not,” she said. “You would be able to leave whenever you want. You can come right back to Aberdeen and hunt whenever you get hungry. You can eat anything you want. Except birds,” she added. “And sheep.”
“And cows and horses,” Chantra said. “You can’t eat any livestock.”
“Or people,” Animus added as an afterthought.
Kuzo grumbled. “This sounds very limiting,” he said, “but I’ll agree to give it a try.”
Tabitha clapped her hands together. “Oh, wonderful! You’ll be happy there, and I can come and visit you every day!” (Kuzo looked less than pleased about this, but said nothing.) “And don’t worry about Brinley. I’m sure she won’t mind at all.”
Animus raised an eyebrow. “It’s settled, then,” he said.
They drifted for a few more minutes on the water, enjoying the peace and quiet of the empty sea. Then Animus glanced at the sky and declared it time to go. “Soon I must summon the Magemother back from Inveress.”
Chantra put a hand to Kuzo’s cold belly, and Tabitha watched as the fire filled his eyes again. She had warmed up his core.
They all rode on Kuzo’s back this time, Animus in front, with Chantra and Tabitha behind him.
“Are you all right, little one?” Kuzo asked Tabitha. “I did not spare you any pain in our battle, and you are not a real dragon, after all.”
“Oh, yes,” Tabitha said, touching her leg where he had bitten it. In her human form, it was just a scratch. “I’m fine.”
As she said it, she couldn’t help thinking of the naptrap. She had found it, and she had failed to get it. Her eyes widened in horror as she realized something else. Something about the look on March’s face.
She had told the witch who the naptrap held.
Chapter Fifteen
In which Hugo stubs his toe
When Hugo awoke the next morning, he thought that he had never felt so peaceful. He lay there for a moment and stared at the sky and felt the way the grass had softened and formed to match the curve of his back. He struggled to recall what Brinley had shown him, what it was that lay behind the curtain of light, but try as he might, he could not remember.
“Come now,” Lashé said, nudging him in the ribs with his boot. “I said get up. Your friend is already tending to the trees.”
Hugo followed Lashé to the far end of the bowl, wondering how they were going to make their way up the wall. It was easily a hundred feet high, and there were no distinguishing formations to indicate a decent foothold. There were no stairs that he could see, and the face was slick. Even if he were a good climber (which he was not), there would be precious few handholds in that type of wall.
Finally, when they were a few feet away, he realized that what he had taken for a mere color shift partway up the wall actually denoted a slight change in the width of the stone. Between the spots of red and orange, there was a little lip about an inch wide.
“Don’t tell me that’s our way up,” Hugo said, indicating the tiny ledge.
“What’s wrong, Hugo?” Lashé asked. “Path a bit too narrow for your liking?”
“A bit.” Lashé was removing his boots. “Can’t you just magic your way up there?” Hugo said.
Lashé paused. “Can’t you?”
“I could,” Hugo grumbled. He glanced up at the top of the wall and closed his eyes, reaching out for the light. He slipped through it toward the top of the wall and felt Molad slipping right alongside him, out of his cell and back into power.
With a yelp, Hugo abandoned the light and let himself fall. Luckily, he had only traveled ten feet or so, and the grass was soft. Lucky, too, he landed on his feet. Still, his knees buckled, and he crumpled into an unintended crouch.
“I guess you can’t, then,” Lashé said.
“If you’re such a powerful wizard, why don’t you just send me up there?”
“I never said I was powerful,” Lashé said. “I only said I was old.”
Hugo slapped himself in the head. “What am I thinking? I’ll just have Cannon set us down up there with the wind.”
“Come now, Hugo,” Lashé said sharply. “The things you learn up there are for you alone.” His tone softened a bit. “You must get there alone. That’s part of the lesson.”
He was taking off his socks now. He brought one of them up to his nose curiously and then tossed it on the ground and wiped a tear out of his eye. “I recommend you take your socks off as well, and you might want to go first so that you’re not downwind.”
The nearest bit of the rock lip was about three feet in the air. Just high enough to make stepping onto it out of the question. He thought that if his leg was strong enough he might be able to put one foot up and then just straighten it, lifting his whole weight up in one smooth motion. He tried it and hopped back from the wall, laughing bitterly. Stupid idea, really. Resisting the urge to ask Lashé for advice, he took a running jump at the wall.
On his first try, he jumped high enough, but too far forward, bounced against it, and slid off painfully. The second time, he made it. He was standing on his toes with his chest against the wall and his arms spread out to the sides awkwardly. He learned very quickly that he had to keep his knees bent and squeeze himself tight against the wall in order to keep his balance.
“The path lies to your right, Hugo, whenever you decide you are ready,” Lashé whispered in his ear, and Hugo nearly slipped.
“Oy! How did you get up so fast?”
“I make this climb every morning. Come now, you don’t have stamina enough to dawdle.” He climbed up past him.
Hugo inched to the right. It wasn’t as bad as he thought it was going to be. When the ledge began to angle upward at a steeper angle, he changed his mind. His right thigh was starting to quiver with the effort, since he was bending it deeper than his left.
A few minutes later he was dripping with sweat, but that was the least of his worries. He was over twenty feet high now. Falling would really hurt from here. On top of everything else, the wind had changed, and Lashé’s feet really did stink something fierce. At least the wind felt good against his sweaty back.
Hugo soon realized that the valley was not exactly round. There was a bulge in the rock wall off to the right, after which the rock changed slightly and slanted off at a thirty-degree angle. The ledge stopped at this bulge in the wall, and he was certain that there would be no way to get around it, but he kept going anyway. As he neared it, his right hand brushed a handhold for the first time and he gripped it like a lifeline.
“That ledge you just found with your hand is where your feet go next,” Lashé said.
Hugo’s heart sank as he craned his neck to look up. Sure enough, the lip of stone continued on above him, slanting away in the opposite direction. He kept inching to the right, hoping that the ledge above him would drop down to where he could comfortably step onto it, but by the time he reached the protuberance in the wall, it was still at his waist.
He glanced down. Forty feet high now. A fall would almost certainly kill him. Maybe reaching for his power would be worth the risk. Even if Molad took control, at least he would still be alive. He shook the thought away. It hadn’t come to that yet.
“ARE YOU FINISHED WITH MY TREES ALREADY, CANNON?” Lashé shouted without warning. “I KNOW YOU’RE NOT, BECAUSE IT TAKES ME ALL MORNING TO DO IT MYSELF, AND I AM AN EXPERT!”
Hugo jerked in surprise, and his calves screamed in protest. He glanced down and saw that Cannon had come over to the base of the wall to watch them.
“Yeah,” Cannon called up. “I’m just going to stand here for a minute and sav
e Hugo when he falls.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Lashé called back. “You will go back to work at once and stop interfering. I promise he won’t die.”
“All right, all right,” Cannon called, and began to walk back.
“Are you going to stand there all day?” Lashé asked. “Or are you going to step up?”
“Step up?” Hugo said.
Lashé tapped the rock lip at their waist meaningfully.
“Right,” Hugo said nervously. Both legs were shaking now. He was exhausted, and this was going to be the hardest part yet. He gritted his teeth. He would just have to go for it.
At the last moment, Lashé tapped him on the shoulder.
“Aaahh, what?” Hugo said, silencing a flash of anger.
“I just promised your friend that you wouldn’t die,” Lashé said. “So don’t fall.”
Hugo stared at him blankly. Cannon was right. Whether Lashé was trying to kill him or save him, he was definitely crazy.
After mustering every last bit of resolve that he could find, Hugo leaned forward onto his hands and pushed upward, straightening his arms until his feet no longer touched the ledge beneath him. Slowly, he began to raise one leg. For a moment, he thought it was working, but then he began to lose his balance. Everything inside him wanted to lean forward and counterbalance his legs, but his upper body was already pressed up against the wall. His back screamed in protest as he attempted to overcome the laws of physics through brute strength.
Before he even got his foot close, he knew he was going to fall, so he decided to slip back down to the lip beneath him instead.
Unfortunately, he set himself back down a little more quickly than he intended to. The result was that instead of landing gracefully with his toes lining right up with the center of the lip, he bashed them into the face of the wall instead. He panicked then, and scraped savagely with his feet, looking for the ledge. As he did, he felt both big toenails rip clear of their beds. That is, the right one ripped clear. The left was still hanging on for dear life.
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